Strikeforce's Woodley thinks Marquardt is going through the motions in title fight

PORTLAND, Ore. – While those around him frequently made light of their professional obligations, Tyron Woodley hardly cracked a smile during the press conference for “Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Kennedy.”

Maybe it was just the words that were shaped into prediction during the gathering. From the opposite side of the dais, Marquardt, a onetime UFC middleweight title challenger, flatly promised to knock him out.

Why would Woodley believe that? To use an old phrase, he wasn’t impressed by Marquardt’s performance.

“You have to convince me,” he said. “It’s not very convincing in his voice that he believes the words that he’s saying. When I say something, I mean it, and I’m coming out here to fight and I’m going home champion.”

“Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Kennedy,” takes place on Saturday at Rose Garden in Portland, Ore. Woodley and Marquardt clash for the promotion’s vacant welterweight belt in the co-main event of the evening, which airs live on Showtime following prelims on Showtime Extreme.

It’s the first chance at major gold for Woodley, but one of many for Marquardt, who looks to reinvent himself in the promotion after being released by the UFC.

The undefeated Woodley found it suspicious that Marquardt was making promises so close to the fight after such a nondescript buildup to Saturday’s fight, which will crown one of them the new welterweight champion.

Woodley didn’t bring up Marquardt’s well-publicized saga with testosterone replacement therapy in interviews prior to the fight, which he easily could have done. He didn’t trash talk or pump the fight with any unnecessary hype.

Marquardt, he said, didn’t exactly do the same, at least at the press conference. And the way he did it seemed disingenuous.

“How many seconds did it take to get out of his mouth?” Woodley said. “If you’re going to knock somebody out, step up and say, ‘I’m going to knock somebody out.’ Don’t wait until the week of the fight. All of a sudden, two days before the fight, you make a comment you’re going to knock [me] out. I just feel like I don’t have to say anything.”

Now, he wants to do his talking in the ring. He said his sullen demeanor reflects a desire to please his trainers with a good performance. That means doing all the things he does in the gym in the cage.

Despite early career finishes by submission, the public has lately seen a lot of two things from Woodley: wrestling and decisions. He’s unapologetic about his ability to smother opponents and said they should better learn takedown defense. But he agrees that he hasn’t reached his potential.

“That’s the mug you see on my face,” he said. “Because I have no interest and I have no intention on proving any critic or any person wrong. The people I’m trying to prove right are my trainers, the people I spar with, (and) the people that leave their families to help me prepare for fights.”

Woodley knows that Marquardt has the ability to knock him out; there’s abundant video footage in the world to back up that fact. Marquardt, on the other hand, might not know what he’s capable of.

“Therefore, you can’t prepare for things that I can do if you haven’t seen it,” he said. “That’s my biggest advantage for this fight. It’s not that he’s coming down in weight, he’s been off for a year, (or) he’s off ‘TRT.’ It’s the fact that I’m one of the top welterweights in the world, and he has no clue what he’s about to get into.”

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